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Smoking Food Thread

Put mine in the fridge on Thursday night. Will likely put it into the brine tomorrow night and keep it out in the cooler from that point on. Should actually be in the. 30s at night so that should help.
 
Two turkeys, 2 deer shoulders, and a brisket have been on for almost an hour and a half. At 20 degrees outside, its the coldest day by far that I've ever smoked anything. Took a while to get the old girl up to temperature, but once I did she's rocking and rolling.
 
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About 90 minutes from the turkeys being ready, another 4 hours or so on the brisket and shoulders. I'm going to wrap them once I take the turkeys off.
 
Apologies if discussed before but do you all use indirect heating with a water pan above the heat source?

I have a gas grill with a good smoke box and today is the first time I've used a water pan. Seems to be going good thus far but have 2 hours left on brisket and St. Louis ribs (keeping a very steady 224-226 temp for the air temp in unit).
 
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IslandDeac said:
Apologies if discussed before but do you all use indirect heating with a water pan above the heat source?

I have a gas grill with a good smoke box and today is the first time I've used a water pan. Seems to be going good thus far but have 2 hours left on brisket and St. Louis ribs (keeping a very steady 224-226 temp for the air temp in unit).
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I use the water pan as a heat sink to help me control the temp. I use foil over the top to help with clean up.

If you're looking to add moisture, I think you have to brine or use a fatty enough cut of meat that it won't dry out.
 
We always go up to my wife's grandmother's house for a 2nd Thanksgiving on the weekend. This year, rather than have a do-over of the traditional Thanksgiving meal for 45+ people, we decided to switch it up and have an outdoor cooking competition. A few teams formed, some judges chosen and we settled on Brunswick Stew (required items: chicken, beans, corn), Cornbread and an appetizer as the required items for the competition. You could cook using gas, charcoal or open flame as long as it was outdoors. I'm happy to report that my team took home the victory.

I ended up using this recipe from Garden & Gun with some additions:
http://gardenandgun.com/article/brunswick-stew-recipe

I made my own Mustard and Vinegar sauces, which was definitely an improvement on anything store bought. I also smoked a couple little fryer chickens and pulled the meat for use in the stew. For an appetizer, we made pulled pork sliders with a bread & butter pickle, so I used some of the pulled pork to make a 50/50 mix of chicken/pork for the stew. Smoked everything in my Weber and then cooked the stew in a couple of stovetop 8 quart cast iron dutch ovens I picked up (trying to get away from non-stick and move to cast-iron and stainless in the kitchen).

The stew came out awesome, with a good amount of heat...definitely keeping this recipe. The judges all noted that the smoked meat was a definite positive. The apps were awesome too, but they were more of a known quantity. Also, got to use my legged cast iron dutch oven (setup to sit on top of coals and have coals place on the lid to form an outdoor oven) for the first time and made some of the best cream corn and chili cornbread in it that I've ever made. Way lighter and fluffier than anything I've made in a traditional oven. All in all, a successful smoking (and outdoor cooking in general) weekend.
 
I've owned both. I started out with the ET-7 but I prefer the 732, mostly because it has a bbq temp as well. One probe in the meat, one on the grate to get an accurate reading. In my smoker, the grate temp is roughly 20 degrees warmer than the top where the fixed thermometers are. There are high and low alarms to let you know when you are getting out of your temp ranges. Its as close to set it and forget it as you can get.
 
For some reason the white is the only one that's $55 and there's only one left in stock, which I imagine won't last long. The other colors are $60.

other suggestions welcomed too obviously
 
Yeah, having a grate temp is helpful. I set that high/low alarm and go to bed. For a wireless themo, that's more important to me than the meat temp to be honest. I don't care much about meat temp for the first 11 hours of a 12 hour smoke. And once I do start to care about meat temp, I just use my instant thermo so I can check multiple spots.
 
JDawg said:
For some reason the white is the only one that's $55 and there's only one left in stock, which I imagine won't last long. The other colors are $60.

other suggestions welcomed too obviously
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Unless you're just set on a color, it doesnt really matter. I've got white, silver and black ones. They all play together nicely.
 
yeah I don't care about color either, was just mentioning in case anybody else was looking at it.

I have a thermometer like this that goes in a hole right below the grate, but I sometimes question it's accuracy. It's kinda old and beat up and that shouldn't matter, but who knows. Of course maybe I'm just a crazy nut too.

bbq-gauge-2-50-550-5.jpg
 
tsywake said:
We use bags and would put them in a cooler on the back porch, but they're always thawed before we start. I've never tried to brine from frozen.
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If you start with a thawed bird (makes sense), how long do you brine? Is overnight enough? I assume you surround the sealed bag with loose ice (and drain off the water to avoid buoyancy of the bird in the bag....or maybe weigh it down)?
 
We brine overnight. Depending on the outside temps, we may add a little ice, but in colder months the temp stays pretty low without it. This past week we didn't add any ice at all, but the outside temp got down to 20 on Thanksgiving eve.
 
Has anybody tried making soup from a smoked turkey carcass? Thought I might give it a whirl...
 
wfumike02 said:
Has anybody tried making soup from a smoked turkey carcass? Thought I might give it a whirl...
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I've made chicken, pork, and turkey stock with the left over bones/carcasses from various smokes over the last year. Typically we just throw it in the crock pot with carrots, onions, and celery if we have it and let it "cook" overnight. Strain it off the next morning and freeze until you need it. I recommend freezing it in 1 to 2 cup servings for convenience.
 
Have a 10 pound, 6 bone standing rib roast I plan to cook indirect over charcoal tomorrow. Trying to decide whether to add any smoke wood or not. Thoughts? I've never cooked a prime rib, but besides the hardwood charcoal, I'm not thinking that I'll need any additional smoke flavor. Going with a basic cracked peppercorn, sea salt, minced garlic and herb rub.
 
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